


love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs

by unchartedsea



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Miscarriage, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 13:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12482680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unchartedsea/pseuds/unchartedsea
Summary: It’s so easy to forget, sometimes, how fragile he is. And he’s right to be scared. In this hellscape, love is a madness.





	love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs

_What is it else? a madness most discreet,_

_A choking gall and a preserving sweet._

_\- Romeo & Juliet_

 

*

 

Furiosa stands at the mouth of the cave, looking out from the Citadel across the endless stretch of horizon. The sky is red fading to indigo. High overhead is a white dot in the sky. One of the Vuvalini called it a planet.

They say there was a moon, once, hanging there every night. She can’t picture it.

Behind her, she hears the whistle of a warpup at the door. Toast shifts next to her, flipping the knife in her hand with expert skill. It’s scary how fast she learns. Furiosa calls out, “Come in.”

Smelt is a skinny thing, no longer painted white. His dark hair curls behind his ears, a green leaf pinned to his shirt collar. It’s the sign of her trust. He enters with a bow, murmuring, “Green Mother.” It makes her want to chuck a rock at him, but the Dag was right. If there was one lesson to take from Immortan Joe—much as the thought leaves her mouth sour—it’s the power of names.

“What is it?”

“A Skulldigger car approaching from the east. We sent a scout, but it’s Max.”

Max. She swallows, flexing the muscles in her living hand. “Tell Cheedo to put out another mattress in the Heart.”

“You need two?” Toast shoots her a sly look.

“I’m glad you’re amusing yourself, but don’t spread false rumors in front of the warpups.”

Smelt, whose mouth is in an O shape, blushes furiously. He bows again, then scurries into the corridor. Toast smirks. “I’ll be going, then.” She slinks out.

She doesn’t like it, the way the Wives—no, no longer, but she hasn’t thought of a better moniker—are always needling her. She lets it be, because she’s long forgotten how to take off armor, how to separate the metal from her skin. If it makes them happy, she’ll leave it. But it makes her think about Max, the strong muscles across his scarred body, the way his jaw works when he thinks, and all the ways she’d like to translate that into a pleasure close to happiness.

Instead she makes her way outside, where a small pack has banded in anticipation. She winces. He hates crowds, but there’s no stopping them.

Capable comes in first, leading the way on her bike. He drives up behind her, engines rumbling and chains clinking against the truck’s metal sides. He steps out, and already she can see the heavy drag of his footsteps, the odd bend in his gait. Before she knows it she’s running, her metal arm pushing through the throng to reach him. His eyes lock with hers, so transparent and guilty, as she grabs his arm. “A week late, and you got hurt. How many did you take on?”  
  
He shrugs. “Thought it was just the Skulldiggers.”

“And?”  
  
“It was not.” He reaches inside, pulls out a couple of grimy bags. Supplies. Ammunition.

She snatches them from him and hands them to Capable, who makes a snorting noise before lugging them off. Then she turns to lead the way, in no doubt that he’ll follow. The Citizens make way, murmuring, “Move. Move for Green Mother.” She can hear the thump-step, thump-step in her wake. He’s limping.

The Heart is a vault no longer, the door ripped off the hinges. Green vines hang across the entrance, and she pushes the curtain aside for Max. He steps gingerly across the threshold, as if he hasn’t slept here for a hundred nights before. She follows him in, pointing to a bag on the ground with clean clothes and a soap bar. “Wash up first. Then we’ll see to the wounds.”

He grunts, stooping to pick it up before trudging into the next room and shutting the door. The soft splashing sound follows, and she bites her lip, trying to ignore the heat pooling in her gut. There are soft cushions around, but she sits in a sandy corner on the floor and reviews Capable’s designs for hydroponic improvements until the Wives return, giggling together. She knows it’s about her, but she holds her tongue. Instead she glances up and asks, “Can you give me a name?”

“Sorry?” The Dag shifts the baby on her hip, and little Giar makes an odd gurgling noise. She’s a bit funny-looking, as expected from any progeny of Immortan Joe, but she’s cute. Furiosa hopes she has half a mind, for the Dag’s sake.

“For you all. Something besides the Wives.”

They glance at each other, then fall into discussion. She turns back to the diagrams, flipping the cloth over to see the next one. Finally, Cheedo clears her throat. “What about the Witch-women?”

“Is that a question?”

Toast shakes her head. “The Witch-women.”

“Okay.” She pauses, looking at their expectant faces, and once again remembers that she means a great deal to many people now. A role she never seems to fit. “I like it.”

They break into smiles and chatter, wandering into their separate off-rooms. Only Capable comes over, sitting down next to her. “Do you like it?”

“You’re outdoing me now. I don’t think you should bother with my approval.”

She beams, leaning her head on Furiosa’s shoulder. “Are you happy Max is here?”

Furiosa glances at her sharply, depositing the cloths in Capable’s lap. “He’s injured. Stupid.”

“Mm-hmm,” Capable replies, sitting up and wiggling her eyebrows. “Me too.” Before she can risk Furiosa’s disapproval, she bounds to her feet and darts into her room, leaving the designs behind. Cheeky. Furiosa leans her head back on the wall, training her eyes on the ceiling.

The bathroom door pushes open. Max emerges, the cloth pants hanging just a bit low on his hips. He’s shaggy, but substantially cleaner. There’s a gash near his ribs, and he’s still hobbling. She gestures to a cushion, which he obediently sits on with a grimace. From her desk, she pulls out the medicine pouch.

He’s so still and quiet as she rubs salve on his wound, even though she knows it stings. His chest rises and falls, his eyes fixed on a distant point. She tries to be gentle, but at some point, he hisses. She jerks her hand back. “Sorry.”

His jaw tightens. “’S fine. Keep going.”

She finishes quickly, then moves to push up his pant leg. There’s a slice near his ankle, and she puts salve there too, careful not to look at his face. Then she reaches for the bandages. “Arms up.”

He does it, but she can see him grit his teeth. She quickly wraps the bandages around, then does the same for his ankle. Then she stands, brushing herself off, and goes to the desk to grab a water canteen. She tosses it at his chest, and he easily catches it with one hand. “You can’t take off after two days this time. You need a week.”

Max chugs the water, a droplet sliding down his chin. “No.” It’s the first hint of rebellion from him in a long time, and she meets his gaze in disbelief. His mouth is flattened into a line. “I’m fine.”

“It’s an _order_.”

“I’m not a Citizen.”

There’s a tense moment, something odd in his vehement stare. It hurts, strangely, which it shouldn’t. Nothing about this is personal. But she’s angry with him. In fact, she’s furious, because after everything she has done for him, after all the trust she’s placed in him, he won’t stay longer. It hits her like a truck (and she knows exactly what that means). He doesn’t want to stay.

“Fine,” she snaps, grabbing the bandages with her metal hand and tossing them into her pouch. “Leave when you want. Ask Cheedo and the Dag to supply you.” She stalks over to the desk, tossing the pouch on top of it, and then heads for the door.

“Wait.” She slows her steps, but faces away from him. She can’t risk showing her expression. “Four days. Promise.”

She knows he doesn’t want to hurt her. Knows exactly what that means, and how little that satisfies the fire raging in her chest. Silently, she leaves the Heart.

 

*

 

He’s penitent in his own way. He’s so good when he’s here, always teaching the warpups new tricks or tinkering in the engines with Capable. He holds Giar gently, a mist of tears in his eyes, and Furiosa marvels at how raw and exposed he is, how easily his emotions break open at the surface. The same man with knife-edge instincts for survival is the one swaddling this baby, brushing a curl from her face.

She knows a little, now, about Jessie and Sprog, and that there are others. So many others. But she’s lost nearly everything and everyone too, and she’s too cold for them to haunt her. She barely remembers her mother’s face.

So she skirts around him. She’s busy, always checking crop rotations and listening to scout reports and resolving disputes. There are few raiders left here, since the Citadel is the stronghold, and she doesn’t want to know how much of the peace Max is responsible for. But nevertheless, she is Green Mother, with children whose demands never cease.

They eat dinner together, but even the Witch-women have noticed the feud and wisely chosen not to comment. She shovels down her greens and resolutely ignores Max’s pleading stare while the girls are all hellbent on friendly conversation. At the end of the second night, she’s made it to the hallway outside her room when she hears his uneven footsteps behind her. “Hold on.”

She turns back. “Do you need something?”

His green eyes bore into hers. “I heal fast. And I can handle myself.”

“Good.”

“That’s…” He trails off, bewildered. “Why?”

It would be easier not to understand, but she does. She growls, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and stepping close to him. “Fine. You tell me. What are you running from?”

His jaw works. She sees his eyes glaze over, the cognition in them fading. He’s trancing. She quickly gets an arm under him, lowering him towards the ground. Shit. She shouldn’t have done that. She leans him on her shoulder, waiting patiently until he stirs with a jolt.

“Shhh. It’s just me.”

He blinks wildly at her, and there’s something so vulnerable and terrified in that look. It’s so easy to forget, sometimes, how fragile he is. And he’s right to be scared. In this hellscape, love is a madness.

His voice scratches. “Furiosa, please. You know I – I can’t.”

She exhales slowly, lowering her forehead to his. “I know. I’m sorry. It was selfish. I’m not asking you for anything more, okay? Just come back.”

He clutches for her hand, but the living one is wrapped at his waist. Hesitantly, she offers the metal one, and he clasps it like it’s not all sharp edges. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” And she sits like that, patient as always, until he finally pulls away.

 

*

 

He climbs up to the lookout the next day and whittles sticks. It’s the first time he’s been anything but helpful, and she can hear the murmurings among the passing Citizens. He’s processing, she knows, so she orders everyone to leave him be, especially the warpups.

It’s a chaotic day. Giar is falling sick, so the Dag is trying various combinations of herbs, and one of them gives her a mild rash. The Milk Mothers are frantic, and it takes much too long to sort out. They’re trying to build a new Rig, but Capable informs her that the engine they’ve been counting on is faulty and may not hold up. And one of the scouts reports that new refugees from Gunsmoke have arrived, so Furiosa needs to arrange housing and initiation rites and assign roles. They turn out to be a slim builder and his poor, mangled former-breeder wife, who are welcome but not terribly useful.

She doesn’t have the time to think about Max until dinner, when she realizes that he hasn’t arrived. Even she’s concerned now. She hopes yesterday didn’t set off too deep of a spiral. If he leaves like that tomorrow, it could be dangerous.

The Skulldigger car is still there. She clambers up to the lookout, but it’s empty. Finally, after some fruitless wandering, she returns to her room. If there’s one thing she can count on, it’s that he never fails to turn up.

How right she was, she realizes, when she finds him sitting next to her bed.

He shoots up to his feet, looking at her with a combination of fear and tenderness that closes her throat. It takes him a moment to find his voice. “I wish I could outrun it.”

“I told you,” she replies, balling her living hand into a fist. “I won’t ask you to stay.”

“Ask me.”

She pauses, hand trembling.

His voice breaks a little. “Please.”

She crosses the room to him, cups his face in her hands, one warm and one cold. She meets his eyes, so vibrantly green, so fierce with life. “Stay.”

“Okay.”

“Stay with me.”

“I will,” he says, and a tear leaks from his eye.

She kisses it away, and the next one, and soon there’s a trail of clothes scattered across her floor. She pushes him down on the bed, relishing in his groan, and then she carefully pins his wrists down and whispers, “Here.”

“Here.” He nods, and something wild and terrible breaks open in her chest. Love is a madness, and she lets it consume them both until the world is white-hot with joy. 

 

*

 

Two months, three months, six months. He doesn’t stay, exactly, but he knows what she meant. He stays longer. He spends a week at a time, waking up each morning with her arm looped over his waist. She enlists him as much as possible; there’s always something to do, and he likes to be around her. Just sitting nearby, counting out bullets or repurposing gasoline containers while she delivers orders and makes decisions.

And then he goes, and then he returns: on a bike, in a truck, once on a modified sand-surfer. Always bearing gifts and scars and bloodstains. Always brooding and exhausted. But he comes back.

He bears the whispers and insinuations with extraordinary patience. If he wasn’t so observant, she’d assume he didn’t hear. Even the occasional rude comment about breeding does nothing to ruffle him. She asks him one night, as they sit up on the lookout watching the sun streak red-orange fire, why none of it gets to him.

His head is perched on her thigh. He shifts slightly to look up at her. “What’s the problem?”

“They think you _belong_ to me. As if you were another shackled Wife.”

“You haven’t chained me up, or starved me, or forced me into anything.”

“That’s not the point. I don’t want them to see you like something I wanted and just took. I don’t own you.”

“You’re not a maniac or a tyrant, last time I checked. You’re the Green Mother. They worship you because they know you care.”

“And what does that make you?”

He shrugs again. “Your two old Vuvalinis called me a Consort.”

“A _what?_ ”

“Does it really matter to you?”

She sighs. “I guess not. Anyway, I shouldn’t waste time on this, since you’re going tomorrow.”

“What would you rather do?”

“Guess,” she replies, and he grins and lifts his mouth to meet hers. 

 

*

 

He’s gone when it happens. She wakes up and immediately hurls into her sheets.

She should have known, shouldn’t she? They were so careful, but there’s so little recourse for care here. Women breed. And, cold as she is, she’s not barren.

She spends the next two days on a razor edge, snapping at the slightest provocation. She gets in a yelling match with Capable that ends up in a small fire (albeit, not a purposeful one). She gets the silent treatment from the Dag, but since she can’t stand to look at Giar and her waddling steps, it’s a blessing. She throws herself into the half-finished Rig and wrenches around inside, clattering metal against metal with spiteful fury.

He’s not going to take it well.

He returns at daybreak, hollows under his eyes and only a meager cache to show for it. A rumor trail, it turns out. She pushes him to sleep, only rousing him for a quick meal before he sleeps again. It’s only in the morning that he finds her, curled up in a blanket on her lookout perch, watching the dusty sky lighten by degrees.

He sits down near her feet, leaning against her knee. “Thinking?”

She swallows. “Something like that.”

“No better place.”

The air falls quiet, the hush settling down around them again. A distant wind whistles. To live in this green place, and to consider the vast emptiness beyond, is to reckon with the possibilities and dangers of hope.

“It’s coming.”

“What is?” he asks, leaning back.

She lifts the blanket and presses a hand to her abdomen, tears welling in her eyes. He stares at her in shock, eyes starting to lose focus, and she quickly grabs his shoulder to shake him. “Don’t go there. Don’t, please,” she begs.

He tries to grasp onto the edge of the blanket, but his hands are shaking badly. “I – I can’t do it again, Furiosa. I lost my son once. I lost my Sprog.”

“I know, but we can’t change this. You need to keep your promise to me. You need to stay, for both of us.” Her voice is steel again, urgent and commanding. “This is different.”

His green eyes meet hers. Just as she feared: all she finds is a haunted expression. His face crumples. “What if something happens? What if I can’t come back from it?”

She kneels next to him, pressing their foreheads together. “Look at me. This will be our strength. We will be strong together. You and me, okay? You and me.”

“Okay,” he whispers, and lets her guide his hand to her abdomen. It’s nothing yet, and it feels like nothing yet, but she manages to coax a smile out of him. Slowly, piece by piece, her Max returns. The ghosts release their hold. “A baby.”

“A baby.”

“Then…you’ll be a Green Mother mother?”

She laughs, a little hysterically, and twines all their hands together, flesh and bone, steel and nails. He trails kisses down her neck until she swats him away, then leans into his chest and lets him hold her. Maybe, she tells herself, they can do it.

 

*

 

Months pass. It’s the dead of night when she feels a stabbing pain in her swollen belly. She shifts, glancing between her legs, and freezes.

Blood.

She shakes Max awake frantically, and he runs out half-crazed, shouting desperately for Cheedo. They rush her into the Heart, the Dag soothing a wailing Giar and the Milk Mothers hauling themselves up to bark out orders. Max is pushed into the hallway to wait. It all begins to blur before her, the overwhelming agony searing through her. She thought she was used to pain, but this is unimaginable. Cheedo squeezes her hand, half-shouting to keep her coherent, and she can feel the contractions beginning.

No. It’s too early.

They know, they all know, but still they all gently talk her through it, wiping her forehead and crying as she screams this dead baby out of her. Her baby, the one she fed and carried and loved, the one that had lived and breathed and died as part of her. There’s not even a body, just clot after clot spilling as she clutches at the Witch-women’s hands.

When the worst subsides, they clean her as best they can, wrap her in blankets and warm her hands. But she can’t respond, can’t do anything but lock herself in. The world has collapsed around her, and the last piece is falling.

They bring him inside.

“Max.”

The way she says his name is a hollow, empty sound, and he recoils from it like a blow. Everyone in the room is looking at him, tear-stained, as his face shutters off. No breaking, no crumpling, no crying. Her Max is gone. Slowly, with great effort, he turns and leaves. Capable leaps up to chase after.  
  
But what can she say to stop him? Furiosa has lost the only thing he couldn’t afford to lose.

 

*

 

For three days they let her grieve, walking her through the mindless motions of living. Eating. Sleeping, in theory. Every night one of them curls up with her, but it isn’t his weight, and she still feels shooting pains, still bleeds. It won’t end, and she lets her mind roil across the desert, untethered. The stench of blood recalls the Fury Road, and she thinks about Max, driving himself into a vast emptiness.

On the fourth day, the bleeding stops, though the pain lingers. But what is that to her? She takes a bike and hurtles in pursuit, as if she knew where he was, as if she could bring them back. She doesn’t stop until the sun is setting, and then she drops to her knees and releases her loud, primal shrieks and beats her fists into the gritty sand. And then she goes home.

She is needed. She is no mother, but she is Green Mother, and so she returns to the Rig and the refugees and the crops and the scouts and the warpups and the people, so many people, all calling her mother and asking for her love. She has none. She runs on empty, but they are used to her being cold, and so they do not ask for anything else. For that, she can be grateful.

 

*

 

There’s a rapid knock on the door, and then Smelt pokes his head in. “Bike spotted, Green Mother. No signal.”

She glances up from where her metal finger is tracing the blueprints. “Send Toast as a scout. Tell her to go armed.”

“I’m always armed,” says Toast, and Furiosa jumps. “I’ve been at the window for ten minutes.”

She massages the bridge of her nose. “Yes, well, I’m focused. Can you just go, please?”

“Alright, alright.”

Just as Toast makes it to the door, Furiosa recalls herself. “Wait. Be careful.”

Toast is quick to joke, but she looks at Furiosa’s face and sighs. Doubling back, she kisses her cheek. “I know.” Then she’s gone.

Ten minutes later, another rapid knock. Smelt looks oddly nervous. “Toast is back.”

“And?”

“She wants you to meet her on the lookout.”

“What? Look, Smelt, I have a lot to do today. So unless you want to spend your night on toilet duty, you’re only going to tell me if something is urgent.”  
  
He winces. “It’s, uh, it’s urgent.”

“Fine.” She takes a deep breath, then marches out to the ladder and hauls herself up. Speaking of, only half the lift has been dismantled for the new Rig, and they should start getting more material prepared. She climbs and thinks about rubber and gasoline until she's at the top, and then all other concerns fly off her.

Someone familiar is waiting at her perch.

His beard is thick and ragged, his hair matted, his skin grimy and dust-layered red. His clothes are half-shredded. But his green eyes are looking right at her, full of pain and suffering and yet something else. For the first time in months, she feels her heart thudding.

“You’re back.”

“I’m back,” he says, the grit making his voice raspy, but she launches himself at him anyway. She sobs and beats his chest and yells until every Citizen in sight is running to see what the commotion is, only to find her pulling him in for a kiss, both of them laughing and crying with abandon.

Love, she knows, is a madness, and she and Max are in the thick of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I don't even like action movies! But here I am! Sacrificing sleep for an unedited and somewhat depressing one shot! I hope you liked it.


End file.
